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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23783671">i just wanna leave you breathless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree'>secretsarenotforfree</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Tree Hill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brooke is mentioned but that's about it really, F/M, anyway take it I guess, doing a rewatching and their journey back gets me every damn time, this is basically a super angsty read of 3.09 when Nathan asks Haley to stay over</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:27:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23783671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The amount of things Nathan would do for her was scary. The amount of things he wouldn’t, just because she wouldn’t want him to, was much scarier.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haley James Scott/Nathan Scott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i just wanna leave you breathless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>basically im doing another rewatch. s3 is always my most heart wrenching naley season BUT IT PAYS OFF SO DAMN HARD. also haley's hair was bomb i said what I said.</p><p>i would die for nathan scott, okay i'll shut up now.</p><p>(title from 'breathless' by the star cast)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been too long. </p><p> </p><p>Too long, and still, still he wasn’t close enough.</p><p> </p><p>Haley ran short nails over the back of Nathan’s head, her fingers relearning how it felt to feel the dark strands against her fingertips. The last time she’d felt them, she’d been on top of him on this very bed, the opposite of the way they were now. Then, there had been a pained, hardened look in those blue eyes she loved, and an ache, present every time he looked at her, whether she felt his gaze consciously or not. It was a look that she’d freaking <em>earned</em>, and she knew it, even if she desperately wished it wasn’t so. She’d heard bits and pieces of the way he was after she left, how he’d had to rebuild the bloody, jagged pieces of the heart she’d left him with.</p><p> </p><p>No one could say that Nathan didn’t care about Peyton - their friendship was founded on the distinction that once upon a time, before they became part of this larger thing their lives had become in sophomore year of high school, they’d had a romantic relationship. It was <em> bad </em> , anyone would agree, but it warped since then, for the better. For Nathan, he’d found Haley and started letting himself get strong enough to grow from that hurt boy who was in a toxic situation and barely coping with it with ugly words and uglier actions. For Peyton, a wealth of other things, but still. That wasn’t the point. The point was, though Nathan would always care for Peyton as a friend, what he’d had with her wasn’t anything close to love. The first time Nathan had ever allowed someone to make it’s way past the thick and damaged walls around his heart, it was with Haley.</p><p> </p><p><em> Haley </em>, who couldn’t stop from scrunching her nose when she smiled.</p><p> </p><p><em> Haley </em> , who still smelled like the kind of body lotion she’d used when they were together, gentle with a flowery scent he barely could pronounce (but still, painfully, knew how much it would be with tax to the second digit after the decimal, and where it was in the supermarket closest to their old apartment). Their old apartment, of course, that Haley still slept in. (Did she think of him while she was there? Remembered nights much like this, in a smaller bed, moonlight streaming through the slats of the blinds. The brush of his breath against the back of her shoulder, the way his fingers used to draw little nonsensical shapes into the smooth skin of her stomach. <em> Did she </em>?)</p><p> </p><p>Haley. (His wife.)</p><p> </p><p>No one had expected them to get this far. When they’d first started dating, not a single soul even believed they were together in the first place. Who’d have thought they’d be through what they’d been through, taken as far and deep as it had. For the rest of his life, Nathan knew, like he knew exactly when a shot that left his hands would hit the way it needed to for that score, that he would always love her. Loving her was woven into the cords of his muscles, tying him together when his bones couldn’t keep him together anymore. Loving Haley would never not exist in the beat of his heart, even when it felt like she’d carved it out with a rusty knife and broken it beyond repair.</p><p> </p><p>It would never be about Nathan not loving her. Or <em> wanting </em>her, for that matter. It was about, in order to protect himself, letting her go. Or trying to figure out, each step hesitant and pained, if he could trust her with him again. Him, because he was with her, Haley James owned all of him. The amount of things Nathan would do for her was scary. The amount of things he wouldn’t, just because she wouldn’t want him to, was much scarier.</p><p> </p><p>Heaven help the man, hell, woman, fucking anything that set out planning to hurt his wife.</p><p> </p><p>(It took him too long to allow his pride to let him see that he was the one causing her the most of it. After he acknowledged it, and cautiously, tentatively swung back open the door of his heart for her to have once again, Nathan knew that the tire slump of her shoulders had been because of him. There were little apologies in the heat of his hand against her back in that hallway, in the little white lie about who’d kissed her at the Halloween party. He didn’t have to - God knows he didn’t - but he did it anyway.)</p><p> </p><p>He’s straddling her. His knees are settled at the dip in her hips, the curve of which made, she was convinced for that very purpose. Before they’d gotten this far, he’d tugged her jeans off her legs, in that a little too cool way of his. (Haley had missed that. There had always been something sexy and powerful knowing that Nathan Scott had a bit of sinning under his belt. It played on her insecurities sometimes, sure, but it would never not give her this thrill. The kind of thrill that skimmed under her skin like the thrum of a live wire every time he start stripping clothes from her like he had all the time in the world and yet couldn’t do it fast enough,)</p><p> </p><p>The rasp of his jeans against her bare legs is familiar in that achy way of something that used to be your norm, no matter how much time passed Haley would never be able to unlearn it. At some point, The jacket Brooke had given to Haley at an entirely too low price (“Roommates discount, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Don’t go spreading the word.” The words had come out of that one-on-a-kind Brooke Davis smiles that reminded Haley how grateful she was to have the talented, fiercely loyal girl as one of her best friends.) hasn't fared much better. It was crumpled in a heap close to where he’d left one of his favorite pairs of sneakers in a blue that would never be able to compete with the shade of Nathan’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Nathan rears up, lazy and confident and Haley’s lips part the slightest bit, knowing what was coming next. There were a lot of things you could call Nathan Royal Scot, and Haley would go to her grave swearing that one of them had to be too fucking attractive. Normally, she wasn’t as much of a fan, but he made her an immediate fan of the buzzcut the moment she’d first seen him in it. When he pulls his shirt over his head, a sluggish warmth rises in her stomach, settling lower. Broad pecs, well shaped arms, and the abs she liked to draw her nails over in a picture for gorgeous she couldn’t help but take way too many mental pictures. (She wanted this to mean something. She wanted to believe that there wouldn’t be a big gap in the time between now, and the next time Haley saw this, but she doesn’t know how guarded he still is. If this would make a difference in the morning.) A blink, and then Haley sees something that she hadn’t seen before.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it had been there, hidden from her under navy sheets and a comforter that night after they were home from the hospital, lips that couldn’t help but kiss her back and hands that wanted to hold her close but couldn’t, wouldn’t overturn the walls he’d had to build against her in order to survive when Haley left him. <em> And didn’t come back. </em> The chain reminded her of the one that those in the military wore, a memory of service. Haley had, like most wars, given him her own brand of PTSD. At the end of it, twisting a little, was Nathan’s wedding ring. The most beautiful turn of gold she was convinced ever existed. What it meant that he carried that symbol of their love under his shirt, the possibility that when he’d taken it off his hand he still kept it close to him, sank and spread through her chest, a wave of unexpected emotion she fought to keep out of the moment.</p><p> </p><p>This boy. <em> This boy </em>. This boy, who reminds her hand what it feels like to be held by his, what it feels like to have him, just a bit, press her into the pillows. It gave her the feeling that Nathan was keeping her here, wanted her here. Love for him rushes up through her throat, fighting to shine from Haley’s ribs like a beacon that wants to list absolutely all of the ways that she does, but she keeps it down. It's not the place. Not the time. There’s a break in the kiss, insistent lips and the entirely too naughty for a tutor girl way she licked her hot little tongue into his mouth, and a little whimper escapes Haley’s mouth.</p><p> </p><p>A groan leaves Nathan’s, and his knees squeeze a bit.”Hales.” He groans, voice rough and slightly raw, and she arches even more into him. Oh god, she’d really fucking missed him. Suddenly, he’s still wearing too many clothes and her free one tugs gently at the buckle on his pants. </p><p> </p><p>The question Haley asks with a tiny squeeze of her fingers around his and the finger hooked in the length of leather is answered with a slight nod of Nathan’s head, breathing a bit hard. She pulls it free and tosses it blindly somewhere, as long as it was off his body. He untangles his hand from her own to unbutton and kick off his jeans, freeing her to lift and wrap her legs over that lean waist. To help him out, of course, Haley had pulled off her tank top, a chill rushing over her bra-less breasts. The hunger that rested in Nathan’s eyes burned a bit more, not wasting the chance to say hello to what he’d so sorely missed.</p><p> </p><p>Big hands, rough with calloused built by countless hours abusing a ball cup her breasts, thumbs stroking tenderly at where they pebble in the sudden exposure. Sensation radiates from her best every time his talented thumb swept over her nipples and Haley sighs a little, the clasp of her hand on her arm going a little slack around Nathan’s neck. “I missed you, Nathan. That feels so good.” </p><p> </p><p>For a moment, he’d silent, nuzzling then placing a kiss at the velvet valley between her breasts, then a few more on the curve of each one before returning his mouth to hers. Nathan kisses her a few times, tender and heated, before he rests his forehead against hers for a moment. “Me too, Hales.” Each of the three words were hoarse, built entirely from a bravery he didn’t know he’d had. “The way you feel…” He shakes his head, hand slipping down to brush for a moment against the elastic of Haley’s panties. Two fingers stroke at her over the fabric, a full body shudder going through her at the motion. (She was incredibly sensitive there. Always had been, responsive in ways that Nathan always ticked in the “i’m fucking lucky to have a girl like you for my wife” box). “Heaven, Hales. Nothing’s ever going to come close.”</p><p> </p><p>A gentle pull, and the slightly damp fabric of her pale yellow panties are nestled in the press of her left thigh, leaving Haley bare. He draws a repetitive circle over her clit, and Haley shudders again, nails digging little crescents into his muscled shoulders. “Oh god,” she whimpers, chin tilting up and changing slightly the lay of her golden brown hair over his pillow and behind her shoulders. (It was gorgeous, at this length. It was lighter than it had been when she’d left him, but it did nothing but compliment her eyes. It was as silky as it always had been, thick and golden and smelling of <em> her </em> - ).</p><p>Sliding down, her wetness gathering on his fingers as he was given proof of just how turned on his wife seemed to be, he pushes two experimental fingers inside of her. Fuck, she’s tight - in Nathan’s anger, he’d managed to convince himself that it couldn’t be as tight as he’d always remembered, but disbelief did that to a man sometimes - but she hasn’t changed, and she clenches around him when he pumps a few more times in experimentation. Haley actually cries out this time, and tips her forehead into the curve of his shoulder. “ <em> Nathan </em>” whispers out of her mouth, and Nathan’s soul hurts a little at how much he st likes the way she says his name more than anyone else in the fucking world. “Nate, you can, ah,” he changes the angle a little, and she loses her words. “I want to feel you inside of me. Now. Please.”</p><p> </p><p>Nathan hesitates for a minute, because he likes to see her come first, but he knows what she’s actually saying. Knows that getting inside of her, being one with her, is what's important right now. That she was already ready for him, and she didn’t feel like waiting.  “Okay.” He pulls her underwear all the way off and shoves boxers down the v of his hips. His cock is, like everything else Nate is, standing proud and tall. He strokes it once, in habit more than anything, because he had been hard enough forever ago. “Hales.” Nathan adjusts his left hand, pressed into the sheets near her head, and draws gentle fingers through her hair. “You ready?”</p><p> </p><p>She nods, her eyes half open, and Nathan pushes forward. As good as Haley had felt around his fingers was nothing in comparison to now, and pleasure makes his head a bit dizzy, heat banked in each inch of his skin. Haley, for her part, tightens the lock of her ankles at his back, and moans a little, moving up and down a little to feel him a tiny bit differently. Grasping her hip, Nathan pushed in again, developing a building but steady rhythm, Haley arching to meet every one of his thrusts. It starts to come over Haley first, little stars building in her core, getting ready to spread to the rest of her, and her eyebrows furrow. “Nathan. Nathan, I’m close,” </p><p> </p><p>Nathan adjusts his hold a bit and continues to hit his rhythm, changing the angle a bit so that he hits her bundle of nerves on every stroke, knowing that when she does it’s all over for him. “I got you. Come for me.” A few more, and Haley's eyes shut, her whole body arching, toes curling behind him, and a few moans leak out of her mouths, airy and satisfied. All he needed was the pulse of her around him to send him over the edge as her, and he buried his face next to her cheek and pants out his own release, chest heaving. </p><p> </p><p>She’s the first to move, stroking down the back of his hair with the easy confidence of a person that knows just the way they do it. Haley wants to talk, to say the millions of questions that lay on the tip of her tongue and had since she’d gotten home, but she’s still not sure how much to trust the fragility of Nathan’s acceptance. He, on some level, must agree, because they don’t say anything until after they’ve cleaned up, and brushed their teeth. Haley holds tight to his arm, tight right under her breasts with her head back against the pillow, his with his nose near to her ear. She squeezes his forearm again, and he presses a kiss to her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>(Haley’s nearly to dream world when she thinks she hears Nathan whisper <em> I love you </em>, and she doesn’t know if she wanted it to happen so badly she manifested it or if it actually happened.) It’s enough, having him around her, with her, and Haley falls asleep to the first good nights sleep she’s had since touching down back in Tree Hill. Nathan, for his part, just holds tight to Haley and uses her warmth to push away the nightmares that still occasionally plagued him of having her get too far away for him to reach.</p><p> </p><p>For now, for tonight, it’s good. They’re together.</p><p> </p><p>(Haley never, ever, wants it to end.) </p>
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